Parking a vehicle in densely populated environments is often a frustrating and time-consuming experience, with few available parking spaces and major street congestion. This is especially true in populated urban environments such as the downtowns of large municipalities (e.g., New York City, San Francisco, etc.). Moreover, parking is often in demand near destinations or event venues such as neighborhoods surrounding sports stadiums, concert halls, amusement parks, or beachfronts.
Additionally, the high price of real estate has motivated many property owners to seek out non-traditional ways for property owners to monetize their real property assets. For example, homeowners can often rent out rooms in their homes to tourists or travelers using an online home rental platform; car drivers can provide taxi services using their personal vehicle to pedestrians using a ride sharing platform.
With traditional booking systems, a user may manually search for parking when close to a destination. The user may try to circle the block and find a spot without the aid of a smartphone, or, attempt to use a smartphone to select a suitable parking space. However, with those systems, it may be either dangerous or illegal for a vehicle operator to attempt to manually search for parking on a smartphone, and the user may have to pull over. Moreover, with those systems, circling the block for parking adds significantly to congestion, with as much as 30% of traffic being caused by vehicle operators looking for parking.